Global actions for sustainable finance taxonomies gain momentum
A growing coalition of international organisations is driving forward efforts to align sustainable finance taxonomies across the world through the Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative – a platform launched at COP29 in Baku to strengthen interoperability and comparability between national and regional frameworks. The initiative aims to ensure that green and transition finance definitions can be understood, compared, and applied consistently across borders – a critical step for scaling sustainable investment toward the goals of the Paris Agreement.
From Baku to Belém: a global roadmap
The initiative, formally titled the Roadmap for Advancing Interoperability and Comparability of Sustainable Finance Taxonomies, was launched jointly by the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBAR), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Sustainable Banking and Finance Network (SBFN), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the International Platform on Sustainable Finance (IPSF) at COP29.
Since then, the partnership has expanded to include the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI), the EU Sustainable Finance Advisory Hub, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and the Ministry of Finance of Brazil – connecting the initiative directly to the Brazilian COP30 Presidency’s “Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3 trillion” vision for scaling climate finance by 2035.
BMZ and EU strengthen global taxonomy cooperation
The newly released Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative Progress Report (2025), published at the margins of COP30, was co-funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the European Union (EU) under the Global Gateway – EU Sustainable Finance Advisory Hub initiative.
As part of this collaboration, BMZ and the EU Sustainable Finance Advisory Hub also finance the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Mapper – a forthcoming open-access digital tool enabling users to compare taxonomy design, sectors, objectives and detailed criteria and thresholds across jurisdictions. The Mapper, developed jointly by GIZ, UNEP FI, CBI, PRI, the University of Edinburgh and other academic partners, will serve as a global public good to enhance transparency and guide investors in aligning portfolios with national taxonomies.
The 2025 Progress Report underscores that improving interoperability is crucial for scaling climate and sustainable finance across borders, highlighting that over 60 taxonomies are now published or in development worldwide. It details global progress on aligning taxonomies, features country case studies, and highlights how many countries converge towards using similar objectives and (ISIC-based) classification, paving the way for greater cross-border comparability.
Towards COP30 and the “Super Taxonomy”
At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the Taxonomy Roadmap partners will showcase four interconnected deliverables:
- The 2025 Progress Report;
- Principles for Taxonomy Interoperability;
- the Sustainable Finance Taxonomy Mapper; and
- the official Taxonomy Roadmap initiative website
These efforts support the Brazilian COP30 Presidency’s “Super Taxonomy” agenda, which seeks to formalise global standards for interoperable taxonomies and embed them in international finance governance through the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group and the UN Financing for Development process.
The bottom line
The Taxonomy Roadmap Initiative is emerging as a cornerstone of global sustainable-finance cooperation. Backed by a broad alliance of international partners, it offers the clearest pathway yet for building a coherent, science-based, and interoperable taxonomy ecosystem – helping capital markets speak a common sustainability language as the world looks to COP30 and beyond.
